How This MH Reader Dropped Over 20kg In 8 Months

For men, weightloss can be a total minefield. With more fad diets and superfoods than you can shake a dumbbell at, finding a diet that works (never mind sticking to it) and erases your love handles is far easier said than done.

I found drinking beer bloated me out, but on weekends I enjoyed a few glasses of wine. I wasn’t teetotal

For one MH reader, 49-year-old Mike Davey, this was most definitely the case. Having been an avid gym goer throughout his thirties, he was coming up to his 40th in the best shape of his life, but lethargy in the gym and a more general lack of enthusiasm for lifting — which, of course, happens to the best of us — hit him hard, and led him to stop going for several years.

Weight quickly piled on and for the father of two, a beer belly also reared its head, becoming more and more noticeable each day — even getting in the way of playing football with his children and, more worryingly, when he tied his shoelaces.

His body fat percentage came in at 20%, a far cry from his lean physique ten years ago. "I used to like taking my top off on holiday," he says. "But when I looked at myself in the mirror, I wasn't happy."

So he did something about it, recognised what was holding him back and — by measuring his weight — set about fixing himself up.

He set goals

The problem with shock diets, unfortunately, is that weight can be gained as quickly as its lost.

So, for Mike, a more realistic weightloss goal was set, to the tune of 0.5-2lbs a week, a healthier amount for a grown man to lose. "I wanted to do it as correctly as I could," he says. "And in the most healthy way, I didn't want to deprive my body of anything it needs."

He Sorted Out His Diet

“My daily intake for my age is about 2,500 calories a day,” he explains. “I worked out if I could reduce my intake to around 1,500 calories a day, I can lose up to 2lbs a week.”

For Mike, this was the catalyst to his huge weight-loss. “Without counting my calories that I was consuming on a daily basis, I wouldn’t have lost the weight that I lost,” he admits.

Once he started doing this, the weight started to drop off “almost every day” according to Mike. On a week-by-week basis, the weight was plummeting, proving that calorie-counting can work.

Inevitably, junk food (and a lack thereof) helped contribute to Mike’s plummeting numbers. Before he started, his sweet tooth — and a particular penchant for pecan Danish pastries — regularly sabotaged his goals. “I didn’t realise how many calories I was consuming each and every day,” he says. “It was probably over 1,000 calories [on lunch], so they had to go.”

“It took determination and willpower, it wasn’t going to happen if I stuck to what I was already eating.” Too right. “I knew that for a fact, just by looking at the scales and looking at myself in the mirror, what I was doing was wrong.” Call it tough love, call it crazy or call it hardy determination, this is what brought Mike closer and closer to his goals.

He drank water. A lot of it

As with the food and the accountability, upping your water intake is essential as part of a larger weightloss plan. Both your metabolism and your digestion will benefit hugely. Likewise, your skin (owing to the lack of alcohol, as well) will vastly improve.

As part of a weight-loss plan, the benefits of a heightened H2O intake are three-fold. Firstly, a study from the Netherlands found that drinking two glasses of water curbed hunger pangs at dinner and made the study’s participants feel less hungry.

Your metabolism gets a charge-up too, thanks to water contributing to a 30% spike in subjects’ metabolic rate, according to one German study. Lastly, 250ml of water before a gym session (and 500ml after) will mean that your muscles will fire on all cylinders during your lifting and will recover optimally afterward, without you having to reach for a sugar-laden energy drink.

Don’t sweat it.

He enjoyed himself

On paper, a body transformation like Mike’s may seem a little dull — swapping sandwiches for salads and the rest — but it doesn’t have to mean culling food groups entirely.

At dinner, Mike still enjoyed pasta and rice — two members of the wrongly besmirched carb family — as long as it fitted into his daily macronutrient goal of 1,500 calories. Even better, he let himself enjoy an occasional glass of wine for a welcome wedge of sanity and to take the edge of a hard day’s work.

Unfortunately, beer had to go for Mike. “I found drinking beer bloated me out, but on weekends I enjoyed a few glasses of wine. I wasn’t teetotal,” he says re-assuringly. “As long as you’ve stuck to your targets…what’s a few a glasses of wine going to do?”

He’s not wrong. Deployed correctly, wine can be a hidden ally in the war against an expanding waist. Not only is it less calorific than beer (190kcal to 220kcal), it can aid heart health and ease joint pain.

He carried on, even after succeeding

Generally speaking, once you’ve reached your transformation goal, it’s remarkably easy to return to old habits and gain weight again. For Mike, however, he did the exact opposite, vowing to never return to his original weight.

At this point, he had already lost a whopping 3.5 stone, but continued to shred by ditching alcohol entirely and reigniting his passion for the gym, focusing on three 90-minute weight sessions weekly.

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